Calories Burned Calculator
Pick an activity, enter your body weight and how long you were moving. This applies the standard MET equation using values from the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities — and reports the net figure as well as the gross one, because some of what you burned you would have burned lying on the sofa.
What you did, and for how long
Speeds are part of the entry because they have to be — running spans 6 to 20 METs depending on pace.
Energy cost scales directly with the mass you are moving, so this is the input the answer is most sensitive to.
Time actually moving. Rest between sets and standing at the lights are not part of the bout.
Running, 6 mph (10 min/mile) is 9.8 METs, so 30 minutes costs 370 kcal gross. Lying down for the same 30 minutes would have cost 38 kcal, so the exercise itself is worth 332 kcal.
- Activity
- Running, 6 mph (10 min/mile)
- MET value (2011 Compendium)
- 9.8
- Gross calories
- 370 kcal
- Resting metabolism over the same time
- 38 kcal
- Net calories from the activity
- 332 kcal
- Gross rate
- 12.3 kcal per minute
- 10% of the gross figure is resting metabolism you would have burned anyway. That share is simply 1 ÷ 9.8, so it grows as the activity gets easier.
- MET values are population averages from the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities. Individual energy cost at the same activity routinely lands 20–30% either side of them.
- Treadmill, bike and watch readouts are usually gross figures and often higher than this. Nothing here corrects for age, sex, body composition, fitness, terrain, or how efficiently you move.
This is general information, not medical advice
This page looks up a population average and multiplies it by your body weight and a duration. It is general educational information about a research classification scheme. It is not medical advice, not a nutrition plan, and not a measurement of what your body actually did.
If you are planning a calorie deficit, managing diabetes or a heart condition, recovering from illness or injury, pregnant, or living with or recovering from an eating disorder, please talk to a doctor or a registered dietitian rather than working from a figure on a web page. Energy balance is one of the areas where precise-looking numbers do the most harm, and the honest range around this estimate is wide enough that treating it as exact would mislead you.
How the number is worked out
One lookup and one multiplication. Everything interesting on this page is in what the lookup can and cannot tell you.
kcal = MET × 3.5 × kg ÷ 200 × minutes • net = kcal − (1 × 3.5 × kg ÷ 200 × minutes)- MET
- The activity’s metabolic equivalent, from the 2011 Compendium
- 3.5
- Millilitres of oxygen per kilogram per minute at one MET — the resting baseline
- 200
- Converts millilitres of oxygen to kilocalories, at about 5 kcal per litre
- kg
- Body weight in kilograms; pounds are converted using the exact 0.45359237 factor
Calories are reported as whole numbers. That is deliberate: the MET values feeding the equation are population means with a wide individual spread, and a decimal place on top of them would be false precision that invites exactly the misuse — tracking a deficit to the calorie — the figures cannot support.
The net figure is subtracted from the rounded gross figure rather than computed separately, so the three numbers shown together always agree by subtraction. A reader who takes the resting line away from the gross line lands on the net line every time.
Gross, net, and why the gap grows
Every calorie figure you have seen for exercise is almost certainly gross: the total energy your body used during the session, resting metabolism included. But you were going to be alive for that half hour regardless. The energy the activity cost is the total minus the one MET you would have spent lying down, and that is the net figure.
The size of the correction is simply one divided by the MET value, so it shrinks as intensity rises and grows as it falls. Running at six miles an hour is 9.8 METs, so about 10% of the total is resting metabolism and the distinction barely matters. Hatha yoga is 2.5 METs, so 40% of the total is resting metabolism and the distinction changes the answer entirely. Housework at 3.3 METs is 30%. A brisk walk at 4.3 METs is 23%.
This is why the gap matters most for exactly the sessions people log most: long, gentle, everyday movement. An hour of easy activity credited at its gross figure can be inflated by a third or more, and if you are adding that to a daily target that already accounts for resting metabolism, you are counting the same calories twice.
72 kg, 30 minutes, running 6 mph
The Compendium lists running at 6 mph as 9.8 METs. Multiply: 9.8 × 3.5 = 34.3 ml of oxygen per kilogram per minute. Times 72 kg is 2,469.6 ml per minute. Times 30 minutes is 74,088 ml. Divide by 200 and you have 370.4 kilocalories, which the page reports as 370.
Now the baseline. One MET for the same 72 kg over the same 30 minutes is 1 × 3.5 × 72 ÷ 200 × 30 = 37.8, rounded to 38. So the run itself cost 370 − 38 = 332 kcal, and 38 of the headline figure is metabolism you were paying for anyway. The gross rate works out at 12.3 kcal per minute.
Swap the run for an hour of hatha yoga at the same body weight and the arithmetic tells a different story: 2.5 × 3.5 × 72 ÷ 200 × 60 = 189 kcal gross, against a resting cost of 76 kcal for the same hour. The class is worth 113 net calories. The gross figure is two-thirds larger than the honest one — which is the whole reason this page reports both.
What a MET value cannot know
The Compendium of Physical Activities is a coding scheme. It was built so that researchers analysing physical-activity questionnaires could assign a consistent intensity to “gardening” or “doubles tennis” across studies, and its 2011 edition compiles measured energy costs from the published literature — mostly small samples of healthy adults, measured in laboratories, doing the activity in a standardised way. The compilers say plainly that the values are not intended to estimate the energy cost of an individual. That caveat is missing from nearly every calculator that uses their table.
- The individual spread is large.Measured energy cost at the same nominal activity routinely lands 20 to 30 percent either side of the listed MET, driven by efficiency, technique, terrain, equipment, and how hard you were actually working within a category as broad as “swimming laps, moderate”.
- The 1 MET baseline is itself a convention. The 3.5 ml/kg/min figure comes from the resting oxygen uptake of a 70 kg, 40-year-old man, and measured resting metabolism across the adult population averages lower than that. For most people the true resting share of a session is therefore somewhat larger than the one shown here — the net figure on this page is, if anything, generous.
- There is no term for you. Age, sex, body composition, fitness, altitude, heat, wind, hills, and mechanical efficiency all change energy cost and none of them appears in the equation. Body weight is the only personal input, because it is the only one the MET scale is defined against.
- Trackers are not a check on this. A wearable estimating energy from heart rate and motion is not measuring oxygen consumption either. Where it disagrees with this page, that is two estimates disagreeing, not a measurement correcting a guess.
Used as a comparison — is an hour of cycling worth more than an hour of walking, and roughly how much more — the MET scale is sound and cheap. Used as a ledger entry to the calorie, it is being asked for a precision nobody built it to have.
What this calculator assumes
- You are an adult. MET values for children differ, because resting metabolism per kilogram is higher in a growing body.
- The duration is time actually moving. Rest between sets, waiting at traffic lights, and standing on the side of the pitch are not part of the bout.
- The activity you picked matches what you did at the intensity described. “Cycling, 12–14 mph” means sustaining that speed, not averaging it across a ride with stops.
- The 2011 Compendium value is representative for you. It is a population mean from published laboratory measurements, and your own cost may sit 20–30% either side of it.
- Resting metabolism is exactly one MET. It is a convention rooted in a 70 kg, 40-year-old reference man, not a measurement of your metabolism.
- Nothing is included for post-exercise oxygen consumption, and pounds are converted with the exact SI definition of 1 lb = 0.45359237 kg.
Calories burned FAQ
What is a MET?
A metabolic equivalent of task — a multiple of the energy you use at rest. One MET is defined as 3.5 millilitres of oxygen per kilogram of body weight per minute, so an activity listed at 8 METs costs roughly eight times what sitting still costs. The convenience of the scale is that it makes wildly different activities comparable with one number, and the cost is that the number is an average across the people who were measured doing it. The MET values on this page come from the 2011 Compendium of Physical Activities, the reference table almost every fitness app is ultimately quoting.
What is the difference between gross and net calories?
Gross is everything you burned during the session. Net subtracts what you would have burned anyway, because you were going to be alive for those thirty minutes whether or not you spent them running. That baseline is one MET, so the net figure is the gross figure minus one MET for the same duration. How much the distinction matters depends entirely on intensity: at 9.8 METs the resting share is about a tenth of the total, but at 2.5 METs — a yoga class, a stroll, most of what people actually do — it is forty percent. Almost no calculator makes this distinction, and it is the single biggest reason published burn figures look generous.
Which figure should I use when I am tracking my intake?
The net one, if you are reasoning about energy balance. Calorie targets and the equations behind them already account for your resting metabolism and daily activity, so adding a gross exercise figure on top counts the resting portion twice. On a long, easy session that double-count is substantial — an hour of hatha yoga is 189 gross calories and 113 net, so using the gross figure inflates the session by two-thirds. If you are simply comparing one workout to another, gross is fine, because the error is roughly proportional.
Why is this lower than the number on my treadmill or watch?
Usually because they are quoting gross calories and this page shows you both. Beyond that, machines and wearables have their own reasons to read high: gym equipment often assumes a body weight if you did not enter one, and cardio machines have long been observed to overestimate. Wrist wearables estimate energy from heart rate and motion, neither of which is a direct measure of oxygen consumption, and their error is largest exactly where people care most — steady-state, low-intensity work. This page does not correct for any of that; it just does the standard equation openly and tells you what it does not know.
How accurate is this for me specifically?
Treat it as a range, not a figure. The Compendium's own documentation is explicit that its values are population means intended for classifying activities in research, not for estimating the energy cost of a specific individual, and measured energy cost at the same activity routinely lands 20 to 30 percent either side of the listed value. There is also a known bias in the 1 MET baseline itself: 3.5 ml/kg/min was derived from the resting oxygen uptake of a 70 kg, 40-year-old man, and measured resting metabolism in the general adult population averages meaningfully lower — which means the true resting share of your session is often larger than the one shown here, not smaller.
Does this include the calories you burn after exercise?
No. Excess post-exercise oxygen consumption — the elevated metabolism that persists after a hard session — is real, but at the intensities in this table it is small, typically a few percent of the session total rather than the large bonus it is sometimes sold as. It also varies enormously with intensity and duration and is not something a MET value carries. Nothing here models it, and any calculator that claims to put a precise number on your afterburn is inventing one.
Why does body weight change the answer so much, but fitness does not?
Because the equation is defined per kilogram. A MET is oxygen consumed per kilogram of body mass per minute, so energy cost scales directly with the mass you are moving — a 90 kg person running at the same pace burns about 25 percent more than a 72 kg person. Fitness does not appear at all, which is a real limitation: a trained runner is more mechanically efficient and may use somewhat less oxygen at the same speed. The MET scale has no term for that, and adding one would require measuring you rather than looking you up in a table.
Sources and review notes
- Ainsworth BE et al. (2011). “2011 Compendium of Physical Activities: a second update of codes and MET values.” Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 43(8), 1575–81 — the source of every MET value on this page, and of the caveat that they are not intended for estimating an individual’s energy cost
- World Health Organization — Physical activity fact sheet, for the moderate and vigorous intensity thresholds the MET scale is used to define
- NIST Special Publication 811 — the exact pound definition used to convert an imperial body weight before the equation is applied
The equation is a convention that has not changed in decades. The MET table has: the Compendium has been revised roughly every ten years, and individual values move as better measurements arrive. The 2011 edition cited above is the one this page reports, and where a newer figure exists for an activity you care about, the newer figure is the better one.